XPost: uk.politics.misc, soc.culture.palestine, soc.culture.egyptian   
   XPost: soc.culture.israel, alt.conspiracy   
   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage   
   By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon   
   Published: 15 July 2006   
   The beautiful viaduct that soars over the mountainside here has become a "   
   terrorist" target. The Israelis attacked the international highway from   
   Beirut to Damascus just after dawn yesterday and dropped a bomb clean   
   through the central span of the Italian-built bridge ­ a symbol of Lebanon's   
   co-operation with the European Union ­ sending concrete crashing hundreds of   
   feet down into the valley beneath. It was the pride of the murdered ex-prime   
   minister Rafik Hariri, the face of a new, emergent Lebanon. And now it is a   
   " terrorist" target.   
      
   So I drove gingerly along the old mountain road towards the Bekaa   
   yesterday ­ the Israeli jets were hissing through the sky above me ­ turned   
   the corner once I rejoined the highway, and found a 50ft crater with an old   
   woman climbing wearily down the side on her hands and knees, trying to reach   
   her home in the valley that glimmered to the east. This too had become a "   
   terrorist" target.   
      
   It is now the same all over Lebanon. In the southern suburbs ­ where the   
   Hizbollah, captors of the two missing Israeli soldiers, have their   
   headquarters ­ a massive bomb had blasted off the sides of apartment blocks   
   next to a church, splintering windows and crashing balconies down on to   
   parked cars. This too had become a "terrorist" target.   
      
   One man was brought out shrieking with pain, covered in blood. Another "   
   terrorist" target. All the way to the airport were broken bridges, holed   
   roads. All these were "terrorist" targets. At the airport, tongues of fire   
   blossomed into the sky from aircraft fuel storage tanks, darkening west   
   Beirut. These too were now "terrorist" targets. At Jiyeh, the Israelis   
   attacked the power station. This too was a " terrorist" target.   
      
   Yet when I drove to the actual headquarters of the Hizbollah, a tall   
   building in Haret Hreik, it was totally undamaged. Only last night did the   
   Israelis manage to hit it.   
      
   So can the Lebanese be forgiven ­ can anyone here be forgiven ­ for   
   believing that the Israelis have a greater interest in destroying Lebanon   
   than they do in their two soldiers?   
      
   No wonder Middle East Airlines, the national Lebanese airline, put crews   
   into its four stranded Airbuses at Beirut airport early yesterday and   
   sneaked them out of the country for Amman before the Israelis realised they   
   were under power and leaving.   
      
   European politicians have talked about Israel's "disproportionate" response   
   to Wednesday's capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now   
   watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage. How can there be any excuse ­   
   any ­ for the 73 dead Lebanese civilians blown apart these past three days?   
      
   The same applies, of course, to the four Israeli civilians killed by   
   Hizbollah rockets. But ­ please note ­ the exchange rate of Israeli civilian   
   lives to Lebanese civilian lives now stands at one to more than 15. This   
   does not include two children atomised in their home in Dweir on Thursday   
   whose bodies cannot be found. Their six brothers and sisters were buried   
   yesterday, with their mother and father. Another "terrorist" target. So was   
   a neighbouring family with five children who were also buried yesterday.   
   Another "terrorist" target.   
      
   Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist. There is something perverse about all this,   
   the slaughter and the massive destruction and the self-righteous, constant,   
   cancerous use of the word "terrorist". No, let us not forget that the   
   Hizbollah broke international law, crossed the Israeli border, killed three   
   Israeli soldiers, captured two others and dragged them back through the   
   border fence. It was an act of calculated ruthlessness that should never   
   allow Hizbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to grin so broadly at his press   
   conference. It has brought unparalleled tragedy to countless innocents in   
   Lebanon. And of course, it has led Hizbollah to fire at least 170 Katyusha   
   rockets into Israel.   
      
   But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had unleashed air   
   attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon?   
   What if the Lebanese air force then killed 73 Israeli civilians in bombing   
   raids in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv and Israeli West Jerusalem? What if a Lebanese   
   fighter aircraft bombed Ben Gurion airport? What if a Lebanese plane   
   destroyed 26 road bridges across Israel? Would it not be called "   
   terrorism"? I rather think it would. But if Israel was the victim, it would   
   probably also be World War Three.   
      
   Of course, Lebanon cannot attack Tel Aviv. Its air force comprises three   
   ancient Hawker Hunters and an equally ancient fleet of Vietnam-era Huey   
   helicopters. Syria, however, has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. So   
   Syria ­ which Israel rightly believes to be behind Wednesday's Hizbollah   
   attack ­ is not going to be bombed. It is Lebanon which must be punished.   
      
   The Israeli leadership intends to "break" the Hizbollah and destroy its   
   "terrorist cancer". Really? Do the Israelis really believe they can "break"   
   one of the toughest guerrilla armies in the world? And how?   
      
   There are real issues here. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 ­ the   
   same resolution that got the Syrian army out of Lebanon ­ the Shia Muslim   
   Hizbollah should have been disarmed. They were not because, if the Lebanese   
   Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, had tried to do so, the Lebanese army would   
   have had to fight them and the army would almost certainly have broken apart   
   because most Lebanese soldiers are Shia Muslims. We could see the restarting   
   of the civil war in Lebanon ­ a fact which Nasrallah is cynically aware of ­   
   but attempts by Siniora and his cabinet colleagues to find a new role for   
   Hizbollah, which has a minister in the government (he is Minister of Labour)   
   foundered. And the greatest danger now is that the Lebanese government will   
   collapse and be replaced by a pro-Syrian government which could reinvite the   
   Syrians back into the country.   
      
   So there's a real conundrum to be solved. But it's not going to succeed with   
   the mass bombing of the country by Israel. Nor the obsession with   
   terrorists, terrorists, terrorists.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)